Genre: futuristic

Review: Vendetta in Death by J.D. Robb

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | B Reviews> book reviews
Review: Vendetta in Death by J.D. RobbVendetta in Death (In Death, #49) by J.D. Robb
Format: eARC
Source: supplied by publisher via Edelweiss
Formats available: hardcover, large print, paperback, ebook, audiobook
Genres: futuristic, mystery, romantic suspense
Series: In Death #49
Pages: 368
Published by St. Martin's Press on September 3, 2019
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Publisher's Website, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Bookshop.org
Goodreads

The predator becomes the prey in the newest thriller in the #1 New York Times bestselling series featuring homicide detective Eve Dallas.

She calls herself Lady Justice. And once she has chosen a man as her target, she turns herself into a tall blonde or a curvaceous redhead, makes herself as alluring and seductive as possible to them. Once they are in her grasp, they are powerless.

The first victim is wealthy businessman Nigel McEnroy. His company’s human resources department has already paid out settlements to a couple of his young victims—but they don’t know that his crimes go far beyond workplace harassment. Lady Justice knows. And in one shocking night of brutality, she makes him pay a much steeper price.

Now Eve Dallas and her husband, Roarke, are combing through the evidence of McEnroy’s secret life. His compulsive need to record his misdeeds provides them with a wide range of suspects, but the true identity of Lady Justice remains elusive. It’s a challenging case, made even more difficult by McEnroy’s widow, who reacts to the investigation with fury, denial, and threats. Meanwhile, Lady Justice’s criminal crusade is escalating rapidly, and if Eve can’t stop this vigilante, there’s no telling how much blood may be spilled…

My Review:

It’s strange to say that a series that always begins with a dead body is a comfort read, but the In Death series has always been one for me. The series is now 49 books in, and at this point I’m reading it more to catch up with my “friends”, the characters in this long-running series, than I am to see whodunnit – or how or why for that matter.

This one begins with more than a bit of schadenfreude. While the killer seems somewhat righteous albeit more than a bit off the rails, the victim, well, the victim was no innocent. His death seems like a case of evil getting its just desserts. The more we find out about the scumbag, the less we sympathize with him.

But this series, is not, and never has been, about vigilantism. There’s a motto on the door of Eve Dallas’ Homicide squad room that reads:

NO MATTER YOUR RACE, CREED, SEXUAL ORIENTATION, OR POLITICAL AFFILIATION, WE PROTECT AND SERVE*, BECAUSE YOU COULD GET DEAD.
*EVEN IF YOU WERE AN ASSHOLE.

All of the victims in this entry in the series were definitely assholes. The serial killer taking them out got their names – and the nature of their crimes – from their victims, the members of a support group for women who have been harassed, abused, raped or otherwise victimized by men.

Eve Dallas knows how those women feel firsthand. It’s part of her own history that her father raped and beat her until she killed him when she was 8, completely, totally, utterly and absolutely in self-defense. At the age of eight she had already been on both sides of this case, as the victim of the abuser and as the killer of same.

But as much as she empathizes, she’s a firm believer in the rule of law. For her, vigilantism is never the way.

So she hunts down a killer who expects to find in Eve a kindred spirit. And is instead uncovered by a righteous cop.

Escape Rating B: This was the book I wanted to read this week. The book I’m listening to has its sad and serious aspects, so I was looking for something that would sweep me away to something not-so-heartbreaking for a little while. The irony is that this series, steeped in tragedy and death, does that for me.

The appeal of this series is in the characters. Part of the appeal of police procedurals in general is the ambiance of the cop shop that lies at its center. In the case of the In Death series, I just plain like these people. It’s not that they are all nice – because some of them certainly are not. It’s that they are interesting, they do their jobs well, they care about each other, and they all have a terrific line in snarkitude. Even Galahad, Dallas’ and Roarke’s cat, has snarkitude to spare. Although his is probably more cattitude. But he’s definitely a scene-stealer – and he humanizes people who might otherwise be either too perfect, too broken, or too perfectly broken to otherwise work.

So I read this series just to catch up on the gang. That being said, there isn’t anything particularly special about this entry in the series. Which doesn’t change the fact that I enjoyed spending time with them.

There’s always a case. This time around the case feels more a part of our early-21st century than Dallas’ mid-21st century – or attitudes don’t change much in the intervening 40 years. And probably the latter, damn it.

The spree killing that Dallas has to stop feels like a direct response to the #MeToo movement, and the idea that it has to have failed, again, to change much is a bit depressing. On the other hand, so far we haven’t had the Urban Wars that her world went through, so there’s that.

But we don’t feel for the victims in this one. They are all scum. It’s easy to see what sets the killer over the edge. All victims had first victimized the women in their lives – and they all got away with it. And for all the reasons that women who report being raped or abused don’t get justice in the real world. The men have more power and society is predisposed not to believe us because we’re women.

The killer is easy to spot, and relatively easy for Dallas to catch. The only thing that allows the spree to stretch to four victims is that the killer strikes every single night. This story is fast, taking place over four short but jam-packed days and nights.

Good does triumph and evil does get its just desserts. But this is fiction, so there will be a part of many readers, including this one, wondering if the killer should have been allowed to go on just a bit longer. And that’s a scary thought in a way. It turns out that the lesson is that vengeance is easy, but that justice is very, very hard.

Review: Connections in Death by J.D. Robb

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | B Reviews> book reviews
Review: Connections in Death by J.D. RobbConnections in Death (In Death, #48) by J.D. Robb
Format: eARC
Source: supplied by publisher via Edelweiss
Formats available: hardcover, paperback, ebook, audiobook
Genres: futuristic, romantic suspense
Series: In Death #48
Pages: 384
Published by St. Martin's Press on February 5, 2019
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Publisher's Website, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Bookshop.org
Goodreads

In this gritty and gripping new novel in the #1 New York Times bestselling series, Eve Dallas fights to save the innocent—and serve justice to the guilty—on the streets of New York.

Homicide cop Eve Dallas and her billionaire husband, Roarke, are building a brand-new school and youth shelter. They know that the hard life can lead kids toward dangerous crossroads—and with this new project, they hope to nudge a few more of them onto the right path. For expert help, they hire child psychologist Dr. Rochelle Pickering—whose own brother pulled himself out of a spiral of addiction and crime with Rochelle’s support.

Lyle is living with Rochelle while he gets his life together, and he’s thrilled to hear about his sister’s new job offer. But within hours, triumph is followed by tragedy. Returning from a celebratory dinner with her boyfriend, she finds Lyle dead with a syringe in his lap, and Eve’s investigation confirms that this wasn’t just another OD. After all his work to get clean, Lyle’s been pumped full of poison—and a neighbor with a peephole reports seeing a scruffy, pink-haired girl fleeing the scene.

Now Eve and Roarke must venture into the gang territory where Lyle used to run, and the ugly underground world of tattoo parlors and strip joints where everyone has taken a wrong turn somewhere. They both believe in giving people a second chance. Maybe even a third or fourth. But as far as they’re concerned, whoever gave the order on Lyle Pickering’s murder has run out of chances…

My Review:

There’s a certain interpretation of this story that says that the whole thing is a bad lawyer joke. Not that the joke is bad, although many lawyer jokes are, but that this is just the kind of story that leads to people telling jokes about lawyers, sharks and professional courtesy. Another way of putting it would be that this is a story that illustrates exactly why Shakespeare wrote, “the first thing we do, let’s kill all the lawyers.”

Unlike so many of the books in this series, Connections in Death doesn’t actually start with a dead body – not that one isn’t found soon enough. Also, unlike many books in the series, while the victim is connected to Roarke and Dallas, the connection is at a couple of degrees removed – and does not result in a trip to the angst factory – at least not for them.

Not that there isn’t plenty to disturb their lives and their hearts. The victim, Lyle Pickering, was a young man who had managed to turn a whole lot of corners in his relatively short life. He had been a gang member, and he had been hooked on drugs. Then he went to prison, and did what we always hope happens but doesn’t nearly often enough.

He grabbed the hands that reached out to help him find himself again. And he made it out. All the way out, with the help of counselors and sponsors and a family that believed in him and one hell of a lot of intestinal fortitude.

Only to be struck down when his ex-girlfriend conned him into believing that she had come to him for help – and not just to let in the three gang members who killed him and tried to stage his death as an overdose.

Dallas doesn’t believe the setup for a New York minute – not just because Lyle’s sister has been offered the job as head therapist at Roarke’s latest project. Although that weighs in. What tips the scale from OD to murder really, really fast is just how sloppy the murderers were in their staging.

They weren’t just sloppy – they were downright stupid. And that’s what does them in. Not just the ones who did the job, but the one who ordered the hit – and eventually reaches out to the dirty lawyer at the bottom of the cesspool.

It’s too bad, too sad, that a good man had to die to clean up so much corruption. It’s not exactly worth it – but Eve Dallas, as always, cleans up the dirt.

Escape Rating B: At this point – 48 books and counting – I’m reading this series because I love all the characters. It doesn’t really matter what the case turns out to be – I just want to see how all my friends are doing.

And every entry in this series is guaranteed to pull me right into the action and whisk me away from whatever I’m doing for a few hours – no matter what. In this particular case the what was a very long plane trip that flew by figuratively as well as literally – although I’m sure my seatmates occasionally wondered what I was laughing about.

This isn’t a funny story by any means, but there is plenty of humor in the constant, ongoing bickering and bantering in Dallas’ cop shop – and I enjoy every line of it.

As a case, this particular book is on the lighter side – or perhaps that should be “slighter” side. Lyle’s murder is certainly a terrible thing for his family. But the case is slighter in the sense that while it troubles Dallas, it doesn’t give her nightmares about her despicable father’s treatment of her, and doesn’t drag some loser/user out of either Dallas’ or Roarke’s past.

It is, however, a case that feels like it could happen today with minor changes in technology. This is a story about a world that doesn’t feel like it’s any different from today – at least not as portrayed in the headlines. The gang members do terrible things to each other and their neighborhood, sleazy lawyer is very sleazy, everybody justifies their own behavior, and people are idiots. LOTS of people are idiots.

One does get the feeling that this is a cesspit that everyone knows about and that no one has bothered to do the work of cleaning up until a murder puts it into Dallas’ path.

This is one of those cases that doesn’t mean anything in the grand scheme of things, but is still very satisfying to see wrap up. A lot of very bad people go down very hard – and it’s as cathartic as ever to watch evil – even petty, small time evil – get its just desserts served up with style.

Review: Leverage in Death by J D Robb

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | B Reviews> book reviews
Review: Leverage in Death by J D RobbLeverage in Death (In Death, #47) by J.D. Robb
Format: eARC
Source: supplied by publisher via Edelweiss
Formats available: hardcover, paperback, large print, ebook, audiobook
Genres: futuristic, mystery, romantic suspense
Series: In Death #47
Pages: 385
Published by St. Martin's Press on September 4, 2018
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Publisher's Website, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Bookshop.org
Goodreads

Lieutenant Eve Dallas puzzles over a bizarre suicide bombing in a Wall St. office building in the latest in the #1 New York Times bestselling series…

For the airline executives finalizing a merger that would make news in the business world, the nine a.m. meeting would be a major milestone. But after marketing VP Paul Rogan walked into the plush conference room, strapped with explosives, the headlines told of death and destruction instead. The NYPSD’s Eve Dallas confirms that Rogan was cruelly coerced by two masked men holding his family hostage. His motive was saving his wife and daughter―but what was the motive of the masked men?

Despite the chaos and bad publicity, blowing up one meeting isn’t going to put the brakes on the merger. All it’s accomplished is shattering a lot of innocent lives. Now, with the help of her billionaire husband Roarke, Eve must untangle the reason for an inexplicable act of terror, look at suspects inside and outside both corporations, and determine whether the root of this crime lies in simple sabotage, or something far more complex and twisted.

My Review:

At first, this one seemed like it was all about the money. A lot of crimes are all about the money, which is how the mystery solving cliches “follow the money” and the Latin “Cui bono?” (translated as “Who benefits”) came into being. But the way that money motivates in this story felt more like the version from the movie Jerry Maguire, “Show me the money”. Because while it is definitely about the money, it also ends up feeling like the money is as much about keeping score as it is about dollars and cents.

Not that there aren’t plenty of dollars and cents involved.

It all begins with a murder, as so many books in this series do. But not just a simple little murder. This is a big, well, more middle-sized kind of murder. It’s a bomb. It’s a crazy guy in a suicide vest blowing up a big meeting (literally) and taking out a bunch of corporate bigwigs.

Sounds like terrorism, doesn’t it? But if it were that simple, Lieutenant Eve Dallas wouldn’t need to spend an entire book solving it. Terrorism isn’t her beat – homicide is. Once her cops discover that the poor bomber was as much of a victim as all the others who were killed or injured in the explosion, the case becomes a whole lot more local, and a whole lot more complicated.

If you read the forex brokers reviews – business24-7, you know, it’s all about the money. Specifically, as the title says, it’s about leverage. The bomb goes off in the middle of a big meeting to sign a merger between rival airlines. The bomb goes off, and both of their stock prices go way, way down. But both companies are solid, both have succession plans in place, and the merger is back on in less than a day. The stocks go back up, way, way up. Past the point they were before that bomb went off.

Anyone who knew in advance what was going to happen had the opportunity to buy very, very low and sell very, very high. And make a killing – pun very definitely intended. Which makes for a hell of a cold-blooded motive for murder.

But for the killers, the whole thing is so much of a rush that they do it again, this time manipulating the art market instead of the stock market.

It’s up to Dallas, with the help of her expert civilian consultant as well as the rest of her team, to discover whodunit and why, before they move on to play their games yet again – or before they disappear for good.

That it’s also a great excuse for Dallas to avoid the Oscar red carpet, where her friend Nadine Furst is up for multiple awards for her movie based on one of Eve’s more famous cases, is just icing on the Dallas and Roarke cake.

Escape Rating B: This series is comfort read for me. That may sound strange, as the books always begin with a murder. But good triumphs, evil always gets its just desserts,  and all the mysteries are wrapped up at the end in a neat bow. But this series is also a case (no pun intended this time) where it’s the cast and crew that I always love to see. The stories always make me laugh, not because the series is intentionally humorous, but because it’s just the kind of humor that I like, where it arises out of the situations and the characters and isn’t an attempt to BE funny, it just IS funny.

I’m particularly fond of Eve and Roarke’s cat Galahad, who is large and in charge and pretty much all cat, all the time. Galahad, bless his furry heart, does not solve crimes. He is, however, very good at the things that cats are very good at, particularly in knowing when his people need some purry affection, and knowing when the best time to interrupt in the hope of getting treats or attention will be. And the entire bed is his, which is completely normal. Possession is 9/10ths of the cat – even the fictional cat. Perhaps especially the fictional cat.

This is also not one of their regular trips to the angst factory – which is good because that wasn’t what I was in the mood for. Eve and Roarke both had hellacious childhoods, and they both have plenty of trauma that they are still dealing with well into adulthood. But there are occasions when someone either tied into one of their pasts or bearing too strong a resemblance to one of their bastard fathers shows up and drags in a whole baggage train of past crap. One of those every once in a while is more than enough. And that isn’t one of those – the occasional nightmare notwithstanding. Anyone who survived either of their childhoods would have the occasional, or more likely the regular, nightmare.

There are two threads to this particular story. One is the case itself, and the other is more personal for Dallas’ team, but also hearkens back to one of her earlier cases, which has proven to be a gift that keeps on giving – as the ending of this story proves.

The case is chilling enough – although it does seem to be operating at multiple removes. The killers aren’t doing their own dirty work. They create the setup, then send a pawn out to do the actual deed while making sure that they can get away scot free if it falls apart. The psychology of this one is all about fathers and children and sacrifice and turns out to have plenty of disgusting, oozing layers to work through.

The personal stuff works its way around and through this multiple murder case. I say personal, but it all goes back to the Icove case from Origin in Death , way back in the 22nd novel in this series. Eve’s friend, reporter Nadine Furst, wrote up the case in a best-selling true crime thriller, which was turned into a movie, which is now up for multiple Oscars – and which has left behind a trail of bodies at pretty much every step of the way. Eve would rather be dead than walk the red carpet, but it’s a dream come true for her partner Detective Delia Peabody. A dream that Eve and Roarke, in spite of the murders, manage to make happen.

It makes for a lovely ending for an enjoyable book in this long running series. Dallas and Roarke will be back in February in Connections in Death – and I’m looking forward to it. After all, I have to see just what Galadhad is up to next!

Review: Heart Sight by Robin D Owens

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | A Reviews> book reviews
Review: Heart Sight by Robin D OwensHeart Sight Formats available: paperback, ebook, audiobook
Series: Celta's Heartmates #15
Pages: 416
Published by Berkley Books on December 5th 2017
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Publisher's Website, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Bookshop.org
Goodreads

Journey back to the planet Celta with award-winning author Robin D. Owens in this novel about shadowed enemies and unimaginable psi power.

Muin "Vinni" T'Vine has been the prophet of Celta since he was six years old. A unique and lonely child, his strong psi power made most people wary of him. But now that he's older, he's ready to marry and protect the girl he's known was his HeartMate for years.

Avellana isn't as fragile as Vinni believes...nor as compliant. She fights to be considered Vinni's equal and a strong member of her Family and community. Both of them have kept Avellana's main power secret for over a decade.

But rumors of her strange psi talent are spreading, and Vinni is experiencing premonitions of danger to Avellana--even from the highest people of the land. When the whispers become threats, Vinni and Avellana must discover and defeat their secret enemies before they can finally claim happiness together.

My Review:

Heart Mate by Robin D. Owens new cover

After a rocky start (I didn’t like the first book, Heart Mate, the first time I tried to read it), Celta’s Heartmates has become one of my all-time favorite series. I look forward to the new book every year, and read it as soon as I get my hands on it.

As I did this year. In spite of the towering TBR pile, and reading commitments now stretching into February, I devoted one glorious day returning to Celta.

Celta is one of those places, like Pern (Anne McCaffrey), Darkover (Marion Zimmer Bradley) and Harmony (Jayne Castle) that sits right on the dividing line between fantasy and science fiction.

All of these series read like fantasy, where the residents have some kind of special powers – and of course Pern has dragons. But all of these worlds, including Celta, are lost Earth colonies, and their human residents arrived by spaceship sometime in the dim past of their planet. A dim past that they rediscover during the course of the series – or one that rediscovers them.

Celta and Pern are standouts in one particular aspect – they both feel liveable. These worlds are internally self-consistent, and, for lack of a better word, they both feel “real”. And they both feel like places where it would be not just possible, but actually reasonable, to live.

If only we could.

The Celta’s Heartmates series also features the best use of the fated mate trope I think I’ve ever seen. Some, but far from all, of the people of Celta have heartmates. And if they have them, they do discover who that person is during their rites of passage where they come into their “flair” (read as psychic or ESP) powers.

But the road is never easy.

Just because you know who your soulmate is, does not mean that the course of love will run smooth. There have been stories in the series where someone’s heartmate has died young, or where the protagonists just don’t have heartmates and have to make do with good, old-fashioned love.

The story in Heart Sight, however, is about two heartmates who are on a road that is filled with rocks, ruts and roadblocks, many of which have been put in place by Vinni T’Vine, the Oracle of Celta, all by himself. Unfortunately for him, the relationship that he’s messed up is his own, and his heartmate has finally called him on his manipulations and general oracular bullshit.

Because the one future that Vinni can’t see is his own. And the person most closely tied to that future is his heartmate Avellana. He can’t see her future, because he can’t see his. But he can sense when her future holds danger. Just not how much.

The story in Heart Sight is, in some ways, more Avellana’s than it is Vinni’s. Because Vinni has been an adult for some time, and has been the Oracle since he was six years old. He’s used to manipulating people for their “own good”.

But Avellana is supposed to be his partner in life and love. The one person that he should be able to confide in and lean on. And that can’t happen if he’s constantly sending her away “for her safety”. Or if he keeps thinking of her as weak and fragile. Because she is neither.

The only way to confront the danger is to face it, head on, together. And that’s the only way that they will have any future together worth having. Or any future at all.

Escape Rating A: I carried this around for a day, because I absolutely could not put it down. Even just five or ten minutes progress on “MORE STORY” was worth ignoring the rest of the world for.

One of the things I enjoy about Celta is that the place feels alive. Time passes, life moves on, things change. Readers first met Vinni when he had just inherited his title from his late grandmother, at the ripe old age of six. We’ve watched him grow up over the course of the series, always as a side character, sometimes significant, sometimes just a walk-on moment in someone else’s story, but always interesting.

Some of the other characters, Like T’Ash and Danith from Heart Mate, have matured into their powerful prime, while others, like many in the Holly Family, have gone from middle age to respected seniority.

The other part of the series that I love is that there is an overarching story of the changes and developments of Celtan society. The people are changing and their planet is changing them. There are forces that embrace those changes, and forces that are determined to fight those changes – with violence if necessary.

The danger that Avellana has faced all of her life is very real – and is part of that conflict. The arch-conservatives see her as an aberration that must be eliminated at all costs. And they don’t care how much collateral damage they do to get to Avellana. But, while the danger to Avellana was real and tied into the long-running conflict, the motives of the current avatar of those arch-conservatives strayed from being merely a dangerous enemy into downright nuckin’ futz. He was more dangerous – and more comprehensible – when he was thinking relatively clearly – even if that clear thinking was down a terrible path.

All in all, I am thrilled with my recent visit to Celta, and as always, I can’t wait to go back. The sooner, the better!

Review: Secrets in Death by J.D. Robb

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | B+ Reviews> book reviews
Review: Secrets in Death by J.D. RobbSecrets in Death (In Death, #45) by J.D. Robb
Formats available: hardcover, paperback, large print, ebook, audiobook
Series: In Death #45
Pages: 370
Published by St. Martin's Press on September 5th 2017
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Publisher's Website, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Bookshop.org
Goodreads

A new novel in the #1 New York Times bestselling series: Lt. Eve Dallas must separate rumors from reality when a woman who traffics in other people’s secrets is silenced.

The chic Manhattan nightspot Du Vin is not the kind of place Eve Dallas would usually patronize, and it’s not the kind of bar where a lot of blood gets spilled. But that’s exactly what happens one cold February evening.

The mortally wounded woman is Larinda Mars, a self-described “social information reporter,” or as most people would call it, a professional gossip. As it turns out, she was keeping the most shocking stories quiet, for profitable use in her side business as a blackmailer. Setting her sights on rich, prominent marks, she’d find out what they most wanted to keep hidden and then bleed them dry. Now someone’s done the same to her, literally—with a knife to the brachial artery.

Eve didn’t like Larinda Mars. But she likes murder even less. To find justice for this victim, she’ll have to plunge into the dirty little secrets of all the people Larinda Mars victimized herself. But along the way, she may be exposed to some information she really didn’t want to know…

My Review:

Watching the trees whip back and forth in the wind, waiting out Tropical Storm Irma, I scrapped everything I was planning to read and went looking for comfort, for books that I knew would sweep me into their worlds from page one – because I’d been there many times before.

Lucky for me, I had a copy of Secrets in Death in the towering TBR pile, and I can always get caught up in Eve Dallas’ near future New York, whether any particular entry in the series is stellar, or as they sometimes are, just a visit with some very dear old friends.

Secrets in Death, while not quite at the top of the series, was a terrific way to kill a hurricane day by losing myself somewhere else.

As the story begins, Eve is having drinks with forensic anthropologist Garnet DeWinter at an upscale wine bar that Dallas normally wouldn’t be caught dead in, when a dead body literally drops into her lap – or at least dies in her arms. The DB (dead body) is instantly recognizable, not just to Eve and Garnet but to nearly everyone in New York City. Larinda Mars was a screen (read that as TV) gossip reporter with an ear for finding the worst dirt on the best people – or perhaps the other way around.

Even as little as Eve plugs into popular culture, she’s aware that there are plenty of people who will be happy to learn that the scum-sucker is dead – and that’s before Eve learns that Mars didn’t put all her best stories on the air. It turns out that the victim had a sideline, an extremely lucrative sideline, in blackmail.

Larinda Mars had plenty of victims. It’s all too easy for Eve to guess that one of those victims finally turned Mars into theirs. But which one? The line forms around the block, not just the block where Mars ostensibly lived, but also around the block where she hoarded her ill-gotten gains. She liked digging the dirt, she loved having people under her pwoer and she relished making enemies.

But she was incredibly good at judging her marks. Not just who would, and could, pay. But who would be willing to pay (and pay and pay) in order to protect not themselves, but to protect someone else that they loved. Because Larinda didn’t just go for current scandal. That was too easy. She specialized in combing through people’s pasts for secrets buried by decades. And if there wasn’t any current vulnerability, she was more than happy to manufacture evidence to link those scandals to the present.

Larinda Mars was scum. But now she’s Eve’s scum. And it’s up to Eve to find justice for the dead – even as the living cry out for their own.

Escape Rating B+: This was an absolutely delicious story. And more than a bit perverse in that deliciousness. Because, like Eve, the more we find out about Larinda Mars, the less sorry we are that she’s dead.

In order to discover the motive for Mars’ death, Eve has to wade through the deep shit (and there is no other word for it, crap does not even come close!) that made up her life. Mars had an absolute genius for discovering people who had something to hide. But hers was a peculiarly insidious type of genius, because she looked for especially vulnerable people whose secrets protected someone else.

She dies in the middle of one of her shakedowns. And we end up feeling much sorrier for her escaped victim than we do for her. And he’s just the tip of her very slimy iceberg.

A big part of the pleasure in this particular book is watching this disgusting woman’s empire of sleaze unravel. There’s a guilty pleasure in the whole investigation – at least until there’s a second victim. It’s only then that the reader, or possibly anyone investigating the cases, feels any regret. Mars was such a scum-sucker that it’s almost impossible not to see her death as some kind of divine retribution – or merely karma being an absolute bitch.

The second death is nothing like the first, but it does expose the murderer. And it’s a good thing that the story wraps up quickly at that point, because after all the glee of tearing down Mars, the takedown of the actual murderer is more than a bit anticlimactic – as is the individual.

Two final comments about Secrets in Death. This was the second book in a month where death was caused by severing the victim’s brachial artery. The first was in Thief’s Mark. For two books that have to have been in separate pipelines for several months if not years to use the same relatively uncommon (at least for fiction) cause of death was coincidental. But it bothered me until I remembered what the other book was.

Gossip columnists, and the damage they do, have been around a long time. That they would continue to be popular and hated in Eve Dallas’ near-future is not really a surprise. But there was something about this story that tickled an old memory, not related to the cause of death. If you’ve ever heard the song “Dirty Laundry” by Don Henley, you’ll recognize all the things about gossip columnists that we love to hate. Some things look like they are never going to change. If you’ve never heard the song, I’ve included a parody video here that really plays up all the aspects of this kind of “news” that people love to hate. And while the video is a parody, the song in the background is the real song. Even though “Dirty Laundry” is now 35 years old, it still rings true. And probably will in Eve Dallas’ time.

Review: Echoes in Death by J.D. Robb

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | B Reviews> book reviews
Review: Echoes in Death by J.D. RobbEchoes in Death (In Death, #44) by J.D. Robb
Formats available: hardcover, paperback, large print, ebook, audiobook
Series: In Death #44
Pages: 384
on February 7th 2017
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Publisher's Website, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Bookshop.org
Goodreads

This chilling new suspense novel from #1
New York Times
 bestselling author J.D. Robb is the perfect entry point into the compelling In Death police procedural series featuring Lieutenant Eve Dallas.
As NY Lt. Eve Dallas and her billionaire husband Roarke are driving home, a young woman—dazed, naked, and bloody—suddenly stumbles out in front of their car. Roarke slams on the brakes and Eve springs into action.
Daphne Strazza is rushed to the ER, but it’s too late for her husband Dr. Anthony Strazza. A brilliant orthopedic surgeon, he now lies dead amid the wreckage of his obsessively organized town house, his three safes opened and emptied. Daphne would be a valuable witness, but in her terror and shock the only description of the perp she can offer is repeatedly calling him “the devil”...
While it emerges that Dr. Strazza was cold, controlling, and widely disliked, this is one case where the evidence doesn’t point to the spouse. So Eve and her team must get started on the legwork, interviewing everyone from dinner-party guests to professional colleagues to caterers, in a desperate race to answer some crucial questions:
What does the devil look like? And where will he show up next?

My Review:

Although the In Death series is as far from a cozy mystery series as it is possible for mystery to get, I still read them for the same reason that I keep up with some of the cozies. I love the cast and crew, and want to check in and see how everyone is doing. Especially Galahad, the big grey cat.

Sometimes the mystery is enthralling or chilling or captivating or all of the above. And sometimes I just get the chance to hang out with the gang for a while. This particular installment of the series turned out to be one of the “hang out with the gang” types.

And that’s not a bad thing.

The case in this story starts out fairly spectacularly. Dallas and Roarke, on their way home from a late dinner party, almost run over a young naked woman in the middle of a blizzard. She’s bloody, bruised, incoherent and hypothermic, but that’s not all. She’s also the victim of a home invasion, where she was raped and her husband was murdered. Which makes her case Eve’s case, and brings a whole bunch of skeletons out of a whole bunch of closets. Not just for poor Daphne Strazza, but also for Eve.

This is one of those cases that tests the motto of Eve’s homicide department. They stand for everyone who is murdered, even the assholes. And Dr. Anthony Strazza was definitely an asshole. He may have been a brilliant surgeon, but he seems to have had the worst “life-side manner” on record. No one had a nice word to say about him. Not his colleagues, not his patients.

And his widow is obviously still scared to death of the bastard, and was so obviously abused by him. If she weren’t such a wreck, she’s be the obvious suspect. And if this wasn’t at least the third in a string of similar, equally heinous, crimes.

This is just the first time that the perpetrator has escalated to murder. But it won’t be the last, and everyone knows it.

But Eve’s objectivity has a few cracks in this one. She sees too much of her abused child self in Daphne, and too much of her cruel and abusive father in Anthony Strazza. And she’s right on all counts. Which never stands in her way. Nothing ever does.

Escape Rating B: I enjoyed spending time with the gang again. And I always like watching Dallas and company do their cop thing, running through the evidence and making the case against the killer.

secrets in death by jd robbBut this was one of their outings where I figured out who done it much, much too early. And once I knew who it had to be, a lot of the work of catching the sick bastard became anticlimactic. I did enjoy watching Eve bait him into a cage and kick the door shut behind him. Watching her wrap a suspect up in his own knots is always fun.

And Galahad’s antics always make me laugh. Eve and Roarke’s byplay about and with the cat will be familiar to anyone owned by a feline.

I already have an ARC of the next book in the series, Secrets in Death. I’m looking forward to another trip to Eve’s New York in few short months.

Review: Apprentice in Death by J.D. Robb

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | A- Reviews> book reviews
Review: Apprentice in Death by J.D. RobbApprentice in Death (In Death, #43) by J.D. Robb
Formats available: hardcover, large print, papaerback, ebook, audiobook
Series: In Death #43
Pages: 375
Published by Berkley on September 6th 2016
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Publisher's Website, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Bookshop.org
Goodreads

Lieutenant Eve Dallas returns in a fast-paced new novel from #1 New York Times bestselling author J. D. Robb. 
Nature versus nurture...
  The shots came quickly, silently, and with deadly accuracy. Within seconds, three people were dead at Central Park’s ice skating rink. The victims: a talented young skater, a doctor, and a teacher. As random as random can be.
Eve Dallas has seen a lot of killers during her time with the NYPSD, but never one like this. After reviewing security videos, it becomes clear that the victims were killed by a sniper firing a tactical laser rifle, who could have been miles away when the trigger was pulled. And though the locations where the shooter could have set up seem endless, the list of people with that particular skill set is finite: police, military, professional killer.
Eve’s husband, Roarke, has unlimited resources—and genius—at his disposal. And when his computer program leads Eve to the location of the sniper, she learns a shocking fact: There were two—one older, one younger. Someone is being trained by an expert in the science of killing, and they have an agenda. Central Park was just a warm-up. And as another sniper attack shakes the city to its core, Eve realizes that though we’re all shaped by the people around us, there are those who are just born evil...

My Review:

This was not the book I planned to review today, but I caught a cold and found myself looking for a book that would suck me in and keep me glued to the page from first to last. I needed something that would take me effortlessly out of myself for a few hours. So I listened to the siren song in my stuffed up head and bought a copy of the new In Death book. I’m always happy to catch up with my favorite futuristic cop shop, whether the mystery is a winner or merely a sideshow. I like these people and am always happy to see how they are all doing. Especially Galahad.

The case in this one has a tiny bit of a ripped from the headlines feel, even though the book takes place in a fictionalized 2062. The NYPSD finds itself hunting for an LDSK who is attempting to cover their agenda with collateral damage – a tactic that only leads to more bodies and more clues for Eve and company to investigate.

The acronym LDSK is in use today, in our early 21st century world. And it’s a shame and a sadness that it needs to exist at all. An LDSK is a Long Distance Serial Killer – someone who sets up in a sniper’s nest and picks off their targets from long-range. This is never an opportunistic crime, because it takes weeks and months of planning to scout out and secure potential nests. In order to shoot accurately at such extreme ranges calls for the coldest of cold blood.

The police work in this case involves sorting the tiny grains of wheat from mountains of chaff.

There are very few people who are capable of the hit at the Central Park Ice Rink that opens this story. Three shots, three victims, from high above and more than a mile away. The shooter has to have used a long-range tactical rifle. The skills to use one and the ability to obtain one narrow the possible field. The shooter was either current or former military, police or professional assassin.

Or trained by one of the above.

In a city of urban high-rises and urban density like New York (the city hasn’t changed much in the intervening decades), isolating the sniper’s nest comes down to finding one perfect needle among hundreds of haystacks. Even with the assistance of Roarke’s fancy IT skills, there is still a lot of pavement pounding and door-knocking involved.

A lucky break gets them a suspect. Two suspects. And the race is on to catch the killer before they kill again. And again. But not again.

Escape Rating A-: I’m probably a bit prejudiced about this one. I needed something like this to take me away from my snotty nose and constant cough, and it blissfully did the job for five hours or so. Consider me grateful.

While Roarke’s IT skills help shorten the door knocking and pavement pounding, in the end it is good police work that solves this case, and it feels like the kind of police work that could feature in an early 21st century police procedural just as well as a mid-21st century one.

Search for links among the multiple victims. Figure out what, and who, they had in common. Find the nest. Dig for witnesses, and pray it doesn’t involve any actual digging. Search for a motive, even a twisted one. Keep an open mind so that the clues lead to the killer rather than an assumption about the killer leading to the clues.

And all the while, keep the team together as the chase goes on, the pressure mounts and the body count goes up.

naked in death by J.D. RobbWhat I love about this series, whether the individual case is thrilling or good or just ho hum, is the team and family-of-choice that has gathered around Eve and Roarke, both because of who they are and sometimes in spite of what Eve in particular says she wants. For a woman who began her story in Naked in Death with very little except the job, she has created a surprisingly large circle of people who she loves and who love her in return. Her constant surprise, occasional consternation and unexpected joy that this is so always warms the heart.

This is one of those cases where Eve sees herself in the killer. There but for the grace of God might have gone Eve, and it is something that haunts her frequently.

This is also a case about mentorship and fatherhood, whether surrogate or biological. What makes one man choose to warp his child beyond humanity? What makes one man pick one someone out of the pack to be child, student and legacy? So as Eve chases the killer, she finds herself looking at the relationships in her own life. What made Feeney pick her out of the sea of cops, all those years ago, and help shape her into the officer she is? What made Summerset pick Roarke, and let them save each other? And what made her choose Peabody?

And how the hell did she escape from what her father tried to make her? And why didn’t this killer?

echoes in death by jd robb These are the kind of questions that keep this reader coming back for more. I can’t wait for Echoes in Death, coming in February. A hot book to warm a chilly winter’s night.

Review: Brotherhood in Death by J.D. Robb

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | A- Reviews> book reviews
Review: Brotherhood in Death by J.D. RobbBrotherhood in Death (In Death, #42) by J.D. Robb
Formats available: hardcover, paperback, ebook, audiobook
Series: In Death #42
Pages: 388
Published by Berkley on February 2nd 2016
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Publisher's Website, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Bookshop.org
Goodreads

Sometimes brotherhood can be another word for conspiracy...
Dennis Mira just had two unpleasant surprises. First he learned that his cousin Edward was secretly meeting with a real estate agent about their late grandfather’s magnificent West Village brownstone, despite the promise they both made to keep it in the family. Then, when he went to the house to confront Edward about it, he got a blunt object to the back of the head.
Luckily Dennis is married to Charlotte Mira, the NYPSD’s top profiler and a good friend of Lieutenant Eve Dallas. When the two arrive on the scene, he explains that the last thing he saw was Edward in a chair, bruised and bloody. When he came to, his cousin was gone. With the mess cleaned up and the security disks removed, there’s nothing left behind but a few traces for forensics to analyze.
As a former lawyer, judge, and senator, Edward Mira mingled with the elite and crossed paths with criminals, making enemies on a regular basis. Like so many politicians, he also made some very close friends behind closed—and locked—doors. But a badge and a billionaire husband can get you into places others can’t go, and Eve intends to shine some light on the dirty deals and dark motives behind the disappearance of a powerful man, the family discord over a multimillion-dollar piece of real estate . . . and a new case that no one saw coming.

My Review:

I thought I would be able to resist reading this until I had a break in the schedule. Who was I kidding?

I’ve never made a secret of the fact that I love this series as whole, but there are some entries in it that I like more than others. Brotherhood in Death was definitely one of the better entries in the series, because of the way that the minor detour into the angst factory is handled this time around.

In this story, both Eve and Roarke’s ties to the victims, and the reason that it drags up crap from Eve’s crappy childhood, are integral to the story and don’t feel “tacked on” for either dramatic or emotional effect.

Eve gets dragged into this case because one of her favorite people in the world, Dr. Charlotte Mira’s husband Dennis Mira, is coshed over the head when he drops in to unexpectedly visit his powerful arsehole cousin. Dennis gets knocked out and abandoned in the family house that he and cousin Edward are fighting over, and cousin Edward is missing.

Cousin Edward is Edward Mira, retired Senator Edward Mira, retired Judge Edward Mira, and no one seems to have any sympathy for the bastard, including his cousin. Dennis mourns the boy Edward used to be, while having little or nothing to do with the man he’s become. Which doesn’t mean that he doesn’t call on Eve to investigate whatever happened, because his last sight of his cousin included a black eye and other evidence of beating and/or torture. And Edward was known to have accumulated plenty of enemies in his high-profile life, both as a Senator and sitting on the bench. There were lots of potential motives for offing him, including the fact that he (and his bitch of a wife) were both pieces of work in the pejorative sense.

Eve’s not surprised when Edward’s body turns up back in the house later, swinging by the neck from a handy chandelier. The only surprise is the sign attached to the body, proclaiming that, “Justice is Served”. Eve immediately starts questioning, “served by whom?” and “for what?”

From there it’s off to the races. It’s Eve’s case to solve, and she is resolved to solve it, even as she discovers that digging into Edward Mira’s life uncovers a slime pit that begins to have all too many resemblances to Eve’s own story.

Edward and his “brothers” at Yale suffered from a really, really horrific case of affluenza. And their victims have come back to make them suffer for the crimes they were never punished for – with every single bit of painful flourish that “the Brotherhood” inflicted on them.

It’s not every case where Eve is looking to arrest both the perpetrators and the victims, but in this one, she’ll relish it.

Escape Rating A-: As much as I enjoyed this book, it should probably come with trigger warnings. Delving into the motives for the killers forces Eve to relive her own horrific experiences, even as it makes her grateful for the people who have come into her life to sway her from the same path that these serial killer took.

I’ll confess that the scene where Eve barks out just how grateful she is to have Peabody in her life almost made me blubber as much as Peabody does while hearing it.

Part of the reason that I love this series so much, even through some of the less successful entries, is that I really like these people. I would be happy to have coffee or a drink with almost every single member of Eve’s team, with the exception of Chief Tech Dickie “Dickhead” Berenski. The team atmosphere in this series reminds me very much of the way that the team works in NCIS.

But this story does have a great deal of angst in it. And unlike some of the other occasions, this is a story where the angst is appropriate, and on Eve’s side is dealt with in a way that helps her continue to process her past and move on with her present and future.

This is a case where everyone, but especially Eve, has a tremendous amount of empathy for the perpetrators, and absolutely none for the victims. There are points early on where Eve is almost angry that she has to stand for victims who were frankly a bunch of arseholes even before their true crimes are uncovered. But she still does her job and does it excellently. In the end, as much as she empathizes with the killers, she is also angry with them for not even attempting to let the system work for them.

And Eve is absolutely right. “If every day started off with sex and waffles, people would maybe be less inclined to kill each other.” Which would be a pity, because without those gruesome murders, we wouldn’t have this marvelous series.